Story Highlights

Trump won and that’s good

I write as a concerned citizen, an Army veteran, a retiree after 26 years as an FBI agent, and service as Davidson County sheriff during a critical time.

I feel it is time for your paper and the liberal left to admit that one Donald Trump won the U. S. presidency in November 2016, was sworn in as POTUS in January 2017, and has been maligned and mistreated by the media at every juncture since that date.

Why so rarely a word about a record year in the stock markets, the boom in real estate, the unraveling of regulations choking small businesses, and a feeling among the electorate that a new day for America has dawned? And that for the first time in years that we citizens can be proud to be Americans.

Hank Hillin, Brentwood 37027

Republican math doesn’t add up

The Republicans and Trump want to convince people that their tax plan will mean a tax cut for the middle class.

When we look at the facts that does not appear to be true. Trump’s plan will eliminate all personal deductions other than mortgage interest and charitable giving; it will also eliminate personal exemptions and does increase the standard deduction which means that most people will take the standard deduction.

If we look at a married couple with two children we see that under the current tax code they receive a standard deduction of $12,600 and four exemptions of $16,200 for a total of $28,800 of income that is not taxed.

Under the Trump plan that same family would have a $24,000 standard deduction only. This would mean that an additional $4,800 in income would be taxed at 12 percent for an additional tax burden of $576 and if the family used itemized deductions in 2016 the additional tax burden would be more.

In addition the minimum tax rate goes from 10 percent to 12 percent; thus the tax burden on all other income would increase as well.

Joe Moorhead, Penn State's offensive coordinator, is expected to become Mississippi State University's next head football coach. The cartoonist's homepage, clarionledger.com/opinion
Marshall Ramsey, The (Jackson, Miss.) Clarion-Ledger

As of Nov. 15, 2017, Mississippi native Jesmyn Ward is a two-time winner of the National Book Award for fiction. The cartoonist's homepage, clarionledger.com/opinion
Marshall Ramsey, The (Jackson, Miss.) Clarion-Ledger

For a presidential candidate who had nothing but criticism for China, President Trump now seems to have nothing but praise for the country and its leader, President Xi Jinping, usat.ly/2i2oKHQ
USA TODAY

Originally published in June 2013; the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., was Dec. 14, 2012. The cartoonist's homepage, courier-journal.com/opinion
Marc Murphy, The (Louisville) Courier-Journal

The lessons of Vietnam

Watching the Vietnam War chronicles, a war which occurred in my time, coupled with the dumb wars since, about which we have been abundantly lied to as well, make it crystal clear to me that our country must never again enter an armed conflict without a 90 percent approval by the Congress, which, by law, must be constrained to pronounce exactly how the war is to be paid for with zero debt in 20 years.

How could our citizens allow so much stupidity, and lying by our leaders, Democrat and Republican? Shame on all of us of those times, not only for what was done but equally for trusting the nation’s leaders.

Regrettably, that distrust extends to this day. I pray President Trump, if nothing else, does not lie to us too.

Paul Latour, Old Hickory 37138

Bogus budget

The new highly-touted Republican budget is bogus. Everyone knows that global warming is a hoax, created by China.

We all know how “smart” President Trump is, and he sagely warned us not to believe Chinese propaganda. But now there’s provision in the Republican budget to allow oil drilling in Arctic regions that must still be covered by miles of ice.

And why has the U.S. Navy created a Task Force Climate Change to prepare for something that clearly isn’t happening? Is it “smart” to spend billions of dollars on a hoax?